1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method, system, and article of manufacture for modifying host Input/Output (I/O) activity to allow a storage drive to which i/o activity is directed to access requested information.
2. Description of the Related Art
Data stored in removable media cartridges may be encrypted by an encryption engine to protect the data. Data encryption is especially useful for businesses that store personal data on their customers. Recent government regulations place requirements and legal obligations on companies storing personal data to report missing data or prevent the data from being stolen.
In prior art systems, a host may submit I/O requests to a storage drive via a control unit, such as a tape control unit, which provides an interface between hosts and multiple storage drives, e.g., tape drives. If the tape control unit receives an I/O request from the host and determines that the tape drive is busy performing operations unrelated to I/O processing, such as error recovery, then the control unit may return a notification to the host to cause the host to suspend timeout operations. In certain prior art systems, the control unit includes a timer. If the control unit timer expires while an I/O request is pending to a tape drive, then the tape control unit determines whether the tape drive is busy with processing unrelated to executing I/O operations. If so, then the control unit sends a message, such as a quiesce message, to the host to cause the host to suspend timeout operations to prevent the host from prematurely terminating the job.